Posted on 01/12/2016 2:21:45 AM PST by beaversmom
Subtitle:
Their history informs fantastical myths and legends, while American tales tend to focus on moral realism.
Article:
If Harry Potter and Huckleberry Finn were each to represent British versus American children’s literature, a curious dynamic would emerge: In a literary duel for the hearts and minds of children, one is a wizard-in-training at a boarding school in the Scottish Highlands, while the other is a barefoot boy drifting down the Mississippi, beset by con artists, slave hunters, and thieves. One defeats evil with a wand, the other takes to a raft to right a social wrong. Both orphans took over the world of English-language children’s literature, but their stories unfold in noticeably different ways.
The small island of Great Britain is an undisputed powerhouse of children’s bestsellers: The Wind in the Willows, Alice in Wonderland, Winnie-the-Pooh, Peter Pan, The Hobbit, James and the Giant Peach, Harry Potter, and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Significantly, all are fantasies. Meanwhile, the United States, also a major player in the field of children’s classics, deals much less in magic. Stories like Little House in the Big Woods, The Call of the Wild, Charlotte’s Web, The Yearling, Little Women, and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer are more notable for their realistic portraits of day-to-day life in the towns and farmlands on the growing frontier. If British children gathered in the glow of the kitchen hearth to hear stories about magic swords and talking bears, American children sat at their mother’s knee listening to tales larded with moral messages about a world where life was hard, obedience emphasized, and Christian morality valued. Each style has its virtues, but the British approach undoubtedly yields the kinds of stories that appeal to the furthest reaches of children’s imagination.
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
Very interesting article.
At this rate they’ll be retelling “The story of Alladdin” or “Ali Babba and the 40 Socialists” as it will be reflective of their primary culture.
Yeah...just read through it. Saw it on a friend’s FB page the other day and forgot to read it. And I had a premonition I might see you on the thread. :)
Spooky ;-).
I’m not sure I agree with the thesis that Britain’s lingering paganism is the key factor, but that possibility could be explored. It would be interesting to see if this was reflected in American populations from the British isles.
For example, if the Scottish Highlands are particularly “otherworldly,” that distinction should have carried over to American populations such as those in eastern North Carolina. There’s probably a PhD dissertation on it, moldering in some deserted college library ...
Yeah, all that seems to have dissipated once populations hit the American shores.
I used to make-up stories for my kids. I think they started off as big-foot stories(we live in the northwest). First started around a campfire - so of course they were friendly bigfoots! As the years went on we would add more characters (superman, batman, Paul Bunyan, etc.) They were fun - but also made sure to include some morals in them.
My last big story to them had knights, a witch, dragons, King Aurthur, etc. It was deciding who should be on the round table. I had lots of twists and turns, and the various nights got in based on various traits (bravery, kindness, ingenuity, compassion, fighting ability, etc.)
So - had the myths AND the morality!
Oh crap - they had Tom Sawyer in them too at one point on his raft. (It must have been a very large raft as it had a bigfoot family and Paul Bunyan on it at one point.) IIRC it was still nothing for Superman to catch it as it went over the raging waterfall!)
The Legend of the Piasa Bird is American...:-)
American fictional tale inspired by Pierre Marquette discovery of cliff paintings of the underwater panther / uktena on Mississippi River bluffs:
http://www.illinoishistory.com/piasabird.html
That’s great what you did for your kids. I think you can have both.
And I think having one or the other exclusively is good, too. I don’t necessarily agree that the British way is better...it’s just different than what we have over here.
Thanks. I was just looking that up and found this link below. I will look at it and your link later.
http://www.piasabirds.com/piasalegend.html
Has Rudyard Kipling become a complete non-person? The Nobel Prize for Literature winner has no mention whatsoever in this article, yet his excellent “Puck of Pook’s Hill” (1905) is a WONDERFUL example of just what this article is about. The left, since The Atlantic definitely leans that way, is completely blind to this great writer, mostly because they see him as an apologist of British Imperialism. Yet to read Gunga-din, Kim or Requiem would give lie to that view.
Sigh!
They tell better stories because of the accent. Reading the back of the cereal box sounds like Shakespeare when you do it with an upper class British accent.
True!
Best of British (British accents in the USA).
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1804544/posts
A cut glass English accent can fool unsuspecting Americans into detecting a “brilliance that isn’t there”, says Stephen Fry. So is a British accent - of any variety - the route to success in the United States?
Actually, very few Brits speak with what they call the "posh" accent. Most have a regional accent...like my English in-laws. Virtually every part of Britain has a different accent. Far more than the U.S. which has a much larger population.
Thank you. I had no idea that there was more than one accent in Britain. I thought they all sounded like Jean Luc Picard. /s
Both types of stories are important and as a homeschooling mother of a family that read out loud each morning and night for 15 years we found that aside from the Bible, we read many classics from both sides of the Atlantic.
Narnia, and the tales of Arthur, Wind in Willows, (Potter wasn’t a favorite, too repetitive) et al, as well as Little Britches, LHOP (family name for the Little House on the Prairie series) and many stories of the founding of the country and its settling.
Just as dressed animals and wizards are British history, Settling and taming the wilderness is our history.
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